And Your Wings Will Burn
by ChasingParadise
Summary: When Stiles woke up from the ice, he was not expecting to find two Southern Water Tribe villagers, or to be told that a hundred years had passed while he was a living popsicle. Then Captain Jerk has to come along and make things worse (but better, in the end).


Scott was really starting to regret the decisions he'd made today. But then again, he usually regretted all things when they involved his cousin.

"Uh, Lydia, are you sure this is a good idea?" he asked, gnawing on his lip in worry.

"Shush, Scott. There's something in the ice…" Lydia muttered as she peered into the gigantic sphere of ice that was currently floating towards their tiny fishing boat.

Scott tugged worriedly on his wolf tail as his cousin continued to stare intently at the ice chunk. Suddenly, she took in a deep breath in through her nose and breathed out with her mouth. The boy warrior watched in awe as the ice chunk split in half with a wave of his cousin's hands.

"… Are you sure you've never had bending lessons before?" he wondered in awe.

Flipping her strawberry blonde hair over her shoulder, she scoffed. "Oh please, Scott."

Both were distracted from their conversation as a giant ball of fur tumbled out of the splintering ice, with a much smaller figure following after it. As soon as they hit the water, Lydia raised her hands and the waves brought the mysterious ice-beings to their boat.

"It's a person!" Scott gasped as Lydia brought the unconscious boy gently into their boat.

Lydia's brows furrowed slightly as she used some healing water to study the body of the boy before her.

"He's alive!" she exclaimed softly.

Just as she said so, the boy's eyes burst open in a momentary flash of bright white light. Scott and Lydia both shielded their eyes with a cry, but the light had already dissipated as suddenly as it came. When the southerners slowly opened their eyes once more, the boy was awake and staring back at them with startled brown eyes.

They blinked.

He blinked.

Suddenly, the boy—Scott realized that he wasn't actually a boy, most likely around the same age as Scott's 16 years—jumped into the air with a startled shout. But when Scott said jumped, he meant literally—the boy shot about twenty feet straight up towards the sky, then floated back down and fell on his butt in the boat.

"You're an airbender! But that's not possible!" cried Lydia.

"Huh? Why not?" he asked.

"Cause they all got wiped out like a hundred years ago!" Scott blurted without thinking.

A second later, he realized that probably wasn't the best thing to say to the guy who was obviously an airbender.

"What? What are you guys talking about?" he frowned.

Lydia glared at Scott, then turned to the airbender.

"Hey, what's your name? I'm Lydia, and this is my cousin Scott, who apparently has forgotten all of his manners," she hissed the last part at him, and Scott rubbed his neck sheepishly.

"Oh, uh, I'm Stiles. But hey, what did you mean when you said the airbenders were all—"

Lydia cut off Stiles by holding her hand up and raising a perfectly groomed eyebrow. The airbender stopped talking immediately and cowered under her gaze. When she put her hand back down, his own went up to rub at his head, which was covered in a short layer of brown buzzed hair. Scott, whose eyes followed Stiles's hand up to his head, noticed something then.

"Hey, those are really cool tattoos!" Scott remarked.

He then grinned at the airbender. Stiles grinned in return, then rubbed at the blue arrow on his forehead.

"Oh, yeah. This is—Betty!" Stiles cried out, startling the other two.

"Huh? Wh—"

But that was all Scott got out before a large shadow came across their boat. The pair of cousins looked up with wide eyes to see the previously forgotten lump of fur flying above their heads.

"Betty's my sky bison," Stiles proclaimed with a smug smile upon seeing the shocked looks on the others' faces, "Isn't she beautiful?"

Lydia glanced at him skeptically, then looked back up at the bison circling overhead.

"Aren't sky bison stripes supposed to be brown, not… blue?" she asked, raising her eyebrow yet again.

Scott refers to that eyebrow as the eyebrow of I'm-not-taking-any-bullshit-from-you-so-don't-even-try.

Stiles laughed sheepishly, then explained, "Yeah, I have no idea why hers are like that. I've never seen another sky bison with stripes that color. But that's what makes my Betty so special, isn't it baby?"

As Stiles directed the last part of his sentence upwards, Lydia's lips twitched. Scott watched as Stile's eyes darted to her lips, then around her entire face.

"Anyway, we're going back to the village. I'm going to have a nice, hot seaweed bath, then we're going to catch you up on about… one hundred years of history," Lydia proclaimed.

She turned around with a flip of her hair and started bending the boat back to the village.

"I think I'm in love," Stiles whispered to Scott.

Scott looked at Stiles, who had a dreamy look on his face, then at Lydia, then back again.

"Dude, that's my cousin!"

* * *

Derek huffed out a smoky sigh as his uncle continued to whistle the irritating tune over again for the fifth time in fifteen minutes.

"Will you please stop that," he scowled, then crossed his arms as his uncle continued to whistle innocently.

"Oh please, dear nephew, one does not simply stop whistling the classics," Peter smirked.

Then again, his uncle talking wasn't much better than his uncle whistling, which left Derek stuck between a rock and a hard place.

"How is a song about the four seasons a classic," Derek growled, everlasting scowl still on his face.

Peter stared at his nephew with an eyebrow, then grinned. Derek hated that eyebrow. Good things never followed it. And a second later, he was proven right.

"I do believe you need a shave, dear nephew. All that stubble gets in the way of your angry brooding."

Derek growled once more, then stalked off the deck. They'd been sailing around the nations for months now, and had finally gotten hold of a lead when Boyd spotted a signal fifteen minutes ago coming from an old Fire Nation trap in the only remaining village in the southern water tribe. His stoic first mate had fetched Derek and brought him on deck to see the signal, all the while without muttering a word. This was why Boyd was his favorite.

After entering his quarters, he slammed his door shut for good measure, even if his uncle wouldn't be able to hear him. He then scowled darkly as he spotted the letter that he'd left open on his desk. Even without looking he knew what was written on it by heart, because all of the letters he ever received now all said the same thing.

_Dearest Derek, _

_Our patience grows thin as the days pass by. Your darling sisters are still comfortable in the capital, for now. Your deadline is soon approaching, and I'd hate for your sisters to encounter a sudden… accident during their stay. I look forward to seeing you again with the Avatar in tow. Give my warm regards to that lovely uncle of yours._

_With love, _

_Kate Argent, Fire Lord Empress of the Grand Fire Nation Empire._

Derek could feel the sarcasm dripping from every single ink drop on the paper. Angrily, he crushed the paper in his fist and sent a burning flame through his hand. He sighed, and then tossed the ashes out the porthole.

The ship raced to the nearing shore, but as fast as it was going, Derek still needed more time.

* * *

"How was I supposed to know there was a booby trap in the creepy old abandoned Fire Nation ship?!" Stiles scowled as he and Scott ran hurriedly back towards the village.

"We warned you! Penguin sledding comes with consequences, especially in these parts!" Scott cried, panting harshly.

In fact, he was panting way _too _harshly.

"Woah! Dude, what's wrong?" Stiles exclaimed as he caught Scott mid-fall.

"Can't… breathe… Need Lydia," Scott gasped.

Without another word, Stiles wrapped Scott's arm around his shoulder, then used his airbending to propel them forward quickly in large jumps. As he neared the village, he saw Lydia running towards them in all her strawberry blonde glory.

"Lydia! Something's wrong with Scott, he—"

"Move!" she barked with barely a glance towards the panicked airbender.

She then ran some glowing water over Scott's chest, and slowly but gradually, his breathing deepened and his chest stopped heaving.

"Okay, what the hell just happened?" Stiles asked, heart still pounding with panic.

"The chi pathways in Scott's lungs are a little tangled, so sometimes when he does anything strenuous, his lungs don't function very well," Lydia explained concisely.

Stiles felt really guilty then because this was all his fault—the penguin sledding, the booby trap, Scott's lungs failing, all of it.

"I—I'm gonna make sure that whoever saw the trap go off stays away from you guys, okay?" Stiles declared while avoiding eye contact with the southerners.

Before they could get another word in—Scott's puppy face was not helping Stiles's guilt, not one bit—Stiles took off with a rush of wind.

* * *

As Stiles neared the village shore, he saw a looming black ship steadily drawing closer. He could just barely make out the Fire Nation insignia on the flag that fluttered from its mast. Face steeled into a determined glare, he called for Betty with a sharp whistle. Ignoring the concerned villagers who'd gathered around after spotting the approaching ship, he leaped up onto Betty's saddle and flew towards the ship.

As he approached the Fire Nation ship, he could just make out the startled faces of the various crewmembers on deck. With determination set on his face, he sprang down from the saddle and landed gently on the metal deck. As his red robes settled down, he immediately found himself surrounded by firebenders, whose arms and legs were posed in battle-ready stances.

He stared at all of them, then remarked, "Wow, what a _warm_ welcome. So who do I have to go to in order to have a discussion on my inevitable capture?"

A smirking man opened his mouth, but before he could say a word, a tall, dark-skinned man stepped up in front of him. Without a word, he gestured with a hand for the airbender to follow. Shrugging, Stiles trailed along after him after shouting at Betty to stay where she was. The smirking man—who was still smirking, was his face stuck like that, or something?—followed the two.

The broad crewmember led him below deck, travelling through a long, dark, and cramped hallway before stopping before a door with the Fire Nation insignia emblazoned onto it.

"Captain's quarters," he grunted before knocking.

The door swung open with a clang, and suddenly a scowl and some major stubble filled his vision.

"Is this scrawny kid really the Avatar?" a surprisingly soft voice questioned.

It totally didn't match the face, thought Stiles, before his brain caught up to his ears.

"Hey!" he exclaimed, face twisted in indignation.

"Well, you do look like an airbender," stated Scowl-and-Stubble, as if there was something _wrong _with his traditional airbender robes, tattoos, and buzzed hair, and Stiles really needed a name to match the face.

"So, uh, who do I have the pleasure of being insulted by today?" Stiles snapped.

The captain, who looked surprisingly young for someone of his position, scowled.

"Captain Hale," he grunted back.

"Oookay, _Hale_, I'm Stiles, I'm an airbender, and I'm the Avatar, yeah. Now that introductions are over and done with, what will it take for you to turn this hunk of metal around and leave the villagers alone? Because I'm not worried for them you see, more for you, because they have this badass waterbender who will totally kick your asses, since she's actually the most perfect being to ever have—"

Derek cut off Stiles's rambling with a growled, "Shut. Up."

Before either of them could get another word in, the creepy smirking guy stepped up beside Hale.

"Now, Stiles, since you seem like a reasonable young man, let's say you come with us peacefully, without any tricks, fighting, blowing us off our feet. Then we see no reason to harm your precious village, hmm?"

"Uncle Peter," Hale hissed, glaring at his uncle.

"Wow, what a family resemblance," Stiles drawled.

He heard a snort behind him, but when he turned to look at the hulking man blocking his way to the entrance, his face was as stoic and expressionless as ever. He shot a grin at the man before turning back towards the pair of bickering relatives.

"Fine," Stiles declared.

"Fine," Hale muttered, but whether it was to him or to his uncle, Stiles really wasn't sure.

Suddenly, the boat rocked violently, metal creaking against metal in protest of the action.

"Boyd!" Hale barked. "What's going on?!"

However, Hale got his reply when a giant wave of water knocked the door off its hinges and proceeded to soak everyone and everything inside the captain's quarters. Stiles whooped when he saw Lydia standing in the open doorway, hands on her hips and radiating goddess-like glory.

"You," he concluded, "are my queen."

He hightailed it out of there, leaving the spluttering firebenders behind in their soaking misery. A giggle burst its way out from his mouth as he followed Lydia back up to the deck. Various icicle statues containing crewmembers with varying expressions met him there, as well as Betty. On top of Betty, holding her reins, was—

"Scott, my man!" Stiles shouted with a happy wave.

"Stiles! Hey!"

Betty roared happily as Stiles and Lydia climbed aboard, and the airbender took the reins from his friend.

"Why'd you guys come after me, though? I was totally handling things," Stiles said as they flew away from the ship.

"You left your staff behind, of course we had to return it," Lydia scoffed as she handed Stiles's glider staff to him.

"She was also pretty worried about you. And me, too, of course!" Scott grinned.

Lydia raised an eyebrow at her cousin, but just sniffed and turned her face away from them. Sties was about to quip something in return, but then realized that they weren't out of danger just yet.

Several large fireballs were rushing towards them. Stiles shouted for Lydia, and the two kept the flaming projectiles at bay with either bursts of air or waves of water.

"We can't lead them back to the village!" shouted Scott. "If we fly away from the village, then maybe they'll follow us and the villagers will be safe!"

Before the other two could reply, however, giant ropes of flame shot towards them. Betty dodged with a roar, and Stiles looked back to see Hale at the other end of the flames, scowl present on his face as usual.

"Try and catch me, Captain _Jerk_!" he yelled, sticking out his tongue for good measure.

He could literally see Hale growl, and that was just a really satisfying feeling.

"Who's that? He looks like a jerk," Scott frowned.

"The jerkiest," Stiles nodded as they dodged more fireballs. "He scowls and growls and has no sense of humor."

Lydia rolled her eyes and barked, "Less talking, more escaping!"

"Yes ma'am!" Stiles grinned, and with a burst of speed, the ship was eventually far behind them.

"Soo," Scott began to say, "where are we headed next? We can't go back to the village because they'll just follow us there, right?"

Lydia nodded in agreement.

"We'll have to head for the mainlands," Stiles reasoned, "And I really need to visit the air temples," he murmured.

Scott and Lydia looked worriedly at each other. They had a lot of history to catch the airbender up on.

* * *

Derek slammed his fist against the railing. He was wet, tired, and angry. The Avatar had gotten away, and now he needed even more time to catch up and find him.

"Derek, what should we do about the village? The Avatar broke his promise, after all," drawled his uncle from behind him.

Without turning, Derek stared out to the open sea and huffed, "No point in bothering with the village. It's faster to just follow him."

He could _feel_ his uncle grin behind him, but he still refused to turn around.

"You heard the man," ordered Peter at the rest of the thawing crew. "Get your asses out of that ice—you called yourself firebenders, after all—and get going! The chase for the Avatar is on!"

* * *

**A/n: Sorry for any mistakes! It's my first time writing in a while, and I am unfortunately unbeta'd.**

**So, what'd you think? Questions, comments, concerns?**


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